


Bedding

by fmo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Curtain Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Intense, hardcore curtain fic, featuring Steve in Target, many textiles, and also casserole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedding

BEDDING, says the big sign above. Steve looks through the rectangular packages, rows of sheets and blankets sealed in plastic the same way food is. Shabby Chic, one of them says. Steve’s getting better at the future all the time but still, seems like there’s dictionaries worth of new words and phrases and brand names he doesn’t know, and he can’t look them all up. He lets Shabby Chic go.

Shabby Chic seems to be more pink and ribbon-y, anyway, so Steve walks along until he sees something that doesn’t look so new and fancy. He finds a package that says it’s flannel, sheets that are checked in sun-bleached colors. He can’t touch them, but he hopes they’re soft.

He puts them in the red cart along with everything else. T-shirts. Sweatshirts. Pants, socks, underwear, toothbrush, a few different kinds of soap. Sam offered to come along, because Sam knows that sometimes the white emptiness of these places is a lot to deal with, but. At least Sam didn’t try to get Steve to buy everything online like Tony did.

Steve pushes the cart along for a little while. Cell phones. Printer ink. Upon reflection, he puts a pay-as-you-go phone in the cart as well. DVDs. He doesn’t need those, since JARVIS gets any movie he could want, somehow . . . that’s probably legal.

He goes past baby clothes quickly with the sense of being horribly out of place and then finds himself in sporting goods. Little colorful weights covered in plastic, jump ropes, soccer balls. Should he buy something here? He’s already bought all the books he can think of, but maybe a jump rope? A soccer ball? He can't decide if the idea is ridiculous or not. He imagines himself with a jump rope in his hands, holding it out like an offering.

A teenager in a red shirt comes by and asks him if he needs help with anything. Thank goodness, she doesn’t recognize him, but he can see she’s wondering who on earth gets emotional over yoga mats.

In the end, Steve walks away, through automotive and shoes back to the front, where he takes the cart through the line and pushes the bags back to his new car and puts them in the trunk. He gets in, rolls the windows down with the push of a button even though it’s still chilly outside, drives home even though it feels strange, not being on a motorbike any more, just taking up more space.

He leaves the car in the garage, brings everything up in the elevator. Natasha gets on for a few floors, but she knows enough to not say anything about all of his bags, even though Natasha not saying anything sometimes says more than Tony chattering for ten minutes.

He opens the windows in his apartment, too, just to get the air flowing, and lights a candle that Bruce gave him because he said it smelled nice. It does smell nice. Steve never lit a candle before just for the nice smell.

Steve isn’t sure what is supposed to happen to the plastic casing of the sheets (do you recycle it?), but he takes it off anyway and puts the sheets and all the clothes in the washer, and then the dryer. As they tumble, he makes one of the casserole recipes he knows by heart: ground beef, pasta, cheese, all the things he needs to eat so he’s not hungry again an hour later. That seemed best, even though the flavor is a modern one—it doesn’t taste like anything he ever ate before. But that’s his policy these days. It’s not before any more. Right?

The casserole bakes, and the sheets come out of the dryer and Steve clambers over the new bed that he built (kind of) and stretches them over it—they’re soft, maybe not as soft as he’d like, but they’re warm. He puts warm new towels in the bathroom and all the soap and the toothbrush and everything that he bought, lined up on the side of the bath and by the sink. The clothes, he folds and slides into the new drawers, stack by stack. Shirts. Pants. Socks.

At last, it’s just after lunch time and Steve makes himself eat some leftovers because he knows he has to, and then he does the dishes and wonders if it’s too cold and sets up the new cell phone so he can watch the hour pass by on its face. Nothing ticks any more.

Tony’s donation of a new tablet is placed on the bed. The remote controls are lined up by the couch. There’s nothing else to do, Steve thinks, and he looks around at the apartment that’s been his for a few months now, since Fury didn’t die in his old one and he couldn’t go back because Sharon wasn’t really a nurse and the window was shot through. Better than Lehigh, he thinks to himself, or a muddy tent behind the front line.

At last, after too much time without even the sound of ticking to divide it up, the elevator dings and Steve stands up.

The elevator opens.

People are saying hello and some other things that are the same things Steve already knows from yesterday's texts, but there’s also, in the sweatshirt and sweatpants Steve dropped off yesterday, looking clean and tired and so ordinary until you look into his eyes . . .

There’s Bucky. His hair is still long, and it’s a little wavy when it’s long. Steve didn’t know that. But there it is now, soft and wavy, and Bucky is clean-shaven now, and looking around and then at Steve.

“Hi,” Steve says. “I hope you like it.”

**Author's Note:**

> The circumstances of Bucky's return are intentionally ambiguous. I guess Strange was probably reading his mind to make sure he was okay to move in with Steve. Bucky was probably in Tony's basement, realistically, poor guy.
> 
> Anyways, please comment if it so moves you!


End file.
